A network device receives packets of information from a communication media access control device, e.g., an Ethernet controller. Each packet may contain data and the destination address of that data. Each receiving port of the device has a “ready signal” which indicates that a predetermined number of bytes or the last byte of the packet has been received. The predetermined number of bytes is usually 64 because that is the size of a minimum Ethernet packet. A high percentage of Ethernet packets (approximately 80%) are minimum length packets, e.g., 64 bytes. Optimizing for 64 byte packets by requesting 64 bytes increases the bandwidth of the processor.